Inkjet printers have become popular for printing on media, especially when precise printing of color images is needed. For instance, such printers have become popular for printing color image files generated using digital cameras, for printing color copies of business presentations, and so on. Industrial usage of inkjet printers has also become common for high-speed color printing on large numbers of items. An inkjet printer is more generically a fluid-ejection device that ejects fluid, such as ink, onto media, such as paper.
For increased quality when printing, inkjet printers often utilize a multiple-pass approach. The information to be output onto the media is divided into two or more passes. The inkjet printhead passes over the same area of media a number of times, each time outputting ink on the same area in accordance with a different pass of the multiple-pass approach. Defects that would otherwise result in printing all the information in one pass over the media, due to missing or misdirected inkjet nozzles, and so on, are effectively hidden when passing over the media multiple times.
However, employing a multiple-pass approach slows printing, since each area of the media is passed over by the printhead more than one time.